Finance Watch: Rhythm And OptiNose IPOs Bring 2017 Total To 31, Surpassing 2016

Public Company Financings: Rhythm and OptiNose are the 30th and 31st initial public offerings of 2017. Also, reverse mergers add two more newly public firms, Valeant raises $1bn to pay down more debt, and PhaseRx and Trevena cut jobs.

This year's tally of biopharmaceutical initial public offerings in the US was tied with 2016's total of 30 IPOs when Rhythm Pharmaceuticals Inc. went public on Oct. 5, but 2017 outpaced last year when OptiNose Inc. launched its IPO on Oct. 12.

With 31 first-time offerings by drug developers and only two and a half months to go until 2018, this year isn't likely to best 2015's extremely active market when 62 biopharma firms went public. (Also see "US IPOs In Review: Relatively Muted Market In 2016 To Continue In 2017" - Scrip, 31 December, 2016.) But with returns from the industry's new offerings providing attractive returns – the IPO class of 2017 had an average gain of 35

Private Company Financings

This edition of Finance Watch covers public company financings. Recent venture capital deals and other private company financings were covered here: Finance Watch:

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